The Resource Management Act 1991 (RMA) is the main legislation that sets out how we manage our environment. At its heart is the principle of sustainable management. This involves making decisions in managing our natural and physical resources in a way that enables our communities, while balancing the effects of our activities on the environment now and in the future.
The RMA is the framework for managing our air, soil, and freshwater resources and our coastal marine areas. Alongside these natural resources, it also regulates how we use and develop land, and how we provide infrastructure. These are all integrated together in the planning system.
The Tasman Resource Management Plan (TRMP) is the Tasman District's combined district and regional plan. It has the objectives, policies and methods, including rules, that guides how we manage issues affecting people and communities, ecosystems, land, rivers, air and water. The rules in the TRMP will say whether you can do something as permitted activity, meaning you can do it as of right, or whether you need to get a resource consent first.
We also have to follow any rules that central government has made, called national environmental standards.
Often these have replaced rules that were in the Tasman Resource Management Plan.
Examples include:
To find out more go to the Ministry for the Environment website and keyword search "national environmental standard"
